An Heiress to Remember (The Gilded Age Girls Club #3) - Maya Rodale Page 0,70

could walk away happy.

She was looking thoughtful now, staring off at the view of the city until she fixed the full force of her gaze on him.

“Do you ever think about the choices we made all those years ago?”

“All the time, since you returned,” he said. “And almost all the time before that. Chances are I’d be nobody or nothing if I hadn’t taken the money your parents offered. I like being somebody. Though I’m starting to wonder if it isn’t everything.”

“Would you take the money again?”

“Have you ever noticed something about the heroes in fairy tales and popular stories?” he asked and her eyes flashed with attention. “They are always princes. Royalty. Nobility. The wealthy. The duke always gets the girl.”

She, who always had a quick retort, had nothing to say now because he was right.

“I thought,” he continued, “that if I wanted to get the girl, I needed to be rich and powerful. And drive a carriage pulled by four white horses.”

“You didn’t need all that.”

“Didn’t I?” There was a moment of silence between them. Because all evidence suggested that he did. Just so he could be loved. “Would you say yes to the duke again?”

“I don’t know,” she sighed. “But I don’t know that I would have chosen you, either. I had nothing but love for you, Wes. But I wish my choice hadn’t been between two men, between all or nothing. I just wish I could have chosen myself.”

“And now you finally have.”

She said yes with no uncertainty and he understood. Beatrice was finally allowed to be herself. To fall in love with herself, to commit to no one but herself. He had nothing that could compete with that. He had a store and a name that carried some weight in this town—but she had her own. He had a fortune—but she wanted for nothing. He had a magnificent carriage pulled by four white horses but she was a witch who could summon a hack in the rain.

Dalton checked all the boxes for Prince Charming.

And all she wanted was to ride off into the sunset on her own.

But after the sunset?

“We made our choices and we have lived with them,” he said. “But we are here, now free to do whatever we wish.”

“I want . . .” She sighed and summoned the words. “I want something between all or nothing with you. But I don’t want to give up my freedom. What do you think, Dalton?”

Would he be content with Beatrice at night only? To agree was to risk the greatest happiness or the greatest heartache. He hadn’t gotten this far by playing it safe. So he raised his glass and said, “Rule—give a woman whatever she wants.”

Chapter Twenty-eight

Later that night

The thing about being a divorced duchess is that there is very little one could do that would cause a scandal greater than divorcing a duke, which meant Beatrice was at tremendous liberty to do whatever she wished.

And if one wished to go home with a certain tycoon at a certain late hour, one could.

In fact, one most certainly did.

Dalton’s carriage sped through the night—the streets blazingly empty at this hour—and stopped before a massive, wildly ornate mansion clearly designed to impress, and definitely overcompensating for something. She recognized it for what it was: a declaration in stone and money that he was a man of consequence.

She followed him from the carriage to the front door, hand in hand. It was late, it was dark. His mansion took up an entire city block so really, no one was close enough to see.

Beatrice hesitated at the threshold.

Her body was humming for the pleasure she knew she’d find with him on the other side. But it was going to mean something, maybe even more than she was ready to claim.

And so, she paused.

Then he slipped her hand in his, entwined their fingers, and looked at her, a question in his eyes. Are you ready for what comes next? She was on fire for it and nervous all the same. But it was Wes, her first love. He of the soulful blue eyes and burning ambition and plain yearning. He of the kisses that made her knees weak and the secret rules that were really the keys to his kingdom.

She stepped over the threshold.

The foyer was a vast marble affair, deliberately designed to impress and intimidate except that she was accustomed to such. Beatrice knew what it meant to live in a house like this. One could never truly